Sport celebrity in South Korea: Park, Tae-Hwan from new generation to fallen angel

Abstract

This study examines the process of how an athlete is constructed as a national celebrity in South Korea through media discourses both online and offline. To this end, the paper explores the media discourses around Park Tae-Hwan, a South Korean swimmer and superstar, and suggests three distinct and related dimensions that have constructed him as a national celebrity. These three dimensions are a new generation, a national and regional celebrity and a fallen (national) angel. The analysis of the discourses on Park demonstrates both the inseparable relationship between the media and sport celebrity and the complex, contradictory roles of sport celebrity vis-à-vis national, regional and global sensibilities in South Korea. Ultimately, the construction of Park as national celebrity reveals a key structure of feeling in South Korea in which nationalist sentiment, regional rivalry and global desire not only converge but also compete against each other.

Keywords:

• Sport celebrity
• South Korea
• nationalism
• the Internet
• media

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jung Woo Lee for initiating and editing the Korean special issue on sport. This work was supported by the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund.

Notes

1. Original texts are in Korean, translated by the author.

2. Presidential messages that celebrated the efforts of Korean athletes were given special attention after the 1984 Summer Olympics (Cho, 2009).

3. Regarding the issues of sport celebrity, online nationalism and regional relations, I discussed more details in Cho (2014).

4. Park had been sensationally disqualified for a false start in 400m freestyle swimming, but he was reinstated after FINA’s jury of appeal overturned the disqualification on the advice of the FINA technical commission.

5. All quotations are from postings in the online community, translated into English by the author. To protect the identities of fans in the community, I identify them by their pseudo names. The last day of access to the online community is 15 July 2015.

http://mlbpark.donga.com/mbs/articleV.php?mbsC=bullpen&mbsIdx=1061959&cpage=13&mbsW=search&select=stt&opt=1&keyword=쑨양.

6. http://mlbpark.donga.com/mbs/articleV.php?mbsC=bullpen&mbsIdx=1062079&cpage=13&mbsW=search&select=stt&opt=1&keyword=쑨양.

7. http://mlbpark.donga.com/mbs/articleV.php?mbsC=bullpen&mbsIdx=1090447&cpage=26&mbsW=search&select=stt&opt=1&keyword=박태환 .

8. http://mlbpark.donga.com/mbs/articleV.php?mbsC=bullpen&mbsIdx=1121718&cpage=20&mbsW=search&select=stt&opt=1&keyword=박태환.

9. http://mlbpark.donga.com/mbs/articleV.php?mbsC=bullpen2&mbsIdx=1837756&cpage=51&mbsW=search&select=stt&opt=1&keyword=박태환.

10. http://mlbpark.donga.com/mbs/articleV.php?mbsC=bullpen2&mbsIdx=1839330&cpage=49&mbsW=search&select=stt&opt=1&keyword=박태환.

11. http://mlbpark.donga.com/mbs/articleV.php?mbsC=bullpen2&mbsIdx=1900904&cpage=19&mbsW=search&select=stt&opt=1&keyword=박태환.

12. http://www.skysports.com/more-sports/other-sports/news/14935/9773638/south-korea-olympic-swimmer-park-tae-hwan-banned-for-failed-drugs-test.

13. http://mlbpark.donga.com/mbs/articleV.php?mbsC=bullpen2&mbsIdx=2166870&cpage=10&mbsW=search&select=stt&opt=1&keyword=박태환.

14. http://mlbpark.donga.com/mbs/articleV.php?mbsC=bullpen2&mbsIdx=2164818&cpage=10&mbsW=search&select=stt&opt=1&keyword=박태환.